D2 20 COOLEST

Well, there’s no stopping the monster that IS my obsession with unusually-named college sports teams. And it’s spreading like a virus. Readers have been e-mailing me asking when I’ll post the NCAA Division 2 version of my 20 Coolest-Named College Sports Teams You May Never Have Heard Of. Well, here it is in all its glory! I hope all of you find it as entertaining as my previous Top 20 Lists.

Comment: Who doesn’t appreciate an “M” with an attitude? Magicians is another one of those names so cool I can’t believe it isn’t used more often, especially since college sports is drowning in teams called Eagles, Tigers, Bulldogs and Wildcats.

19. ALASKA-ANCHORAGE SEAWOLVES

Location: Bangkok, Thailand. I’m kidding! Anchorage, AK

Conference Affiliation: Great Northwest Athletic Conference

Comment: No, it’s not a Loch Ness Monster sighting, it’s the Seawolves, who have a butt-kicking nickname and a butt-kicking logo! In fact if the logo looks familiar it’s because the Seawolves were always the host school for basketball’s Great Alaska Shootout, November’s cold-weather answer to the Maui Invitational. Appropriately for a school in Alaska, the Seawolves are a hockey power.

18. ERSKINE COLLEGE FLYING FLEET

Location: Due West, SC

Conference Affiliation: Conference Carolinas

Comment: The Flying Fleet is such a cool name it sounds like the title of an adventure for G-8 And His Battle Aces from old pulp stories! Or if that’s too dated a reference for you how about a Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrrow joke? Let me know when you come up with one.

Comment: Yes, it’s Pittsburg without the “h” at the end and it’s in Kansas, not Pennsylvania. And their quarterback isn’t currently serving a 4-game suspension either! That friendly fellow up there is Gus the gorilla and that image adorns the middle of the football field in the Gorillas’ home stadium, called The Jungle in the tradition of The Swamp and The Big House.

16. ARKANSAS TECH WONDERBOYS

Location: Russellville, AR

Conference Affiliation: Gulf South Conference

Comment: DC Comics has Wonder Woman, Marvel Comics has Wonder Man and the Gulf South Conference (often called the SEC of D2 football- at least until some teams leave it after this season) has the Wonderboys. The womens’ teams are called the Golden Suns which is pretty cool, too. Plus it’s fun hearing announcers say things like “First down Wonderboys!” and “The opposing team is now in Wonderboys’ territory!”

15. KENTUCKY STATE THOROBREDS

Location: Frankfort, KY

Conference Affiliation: Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

Comment: When you say Kentucky people think Kentucky Derby. And when you say Kentucky Derby people think of the Kyrwryd Derby. Just kidding. Everybody outside of hardcore Bullwinkle fans thinks horses and Thorobreds therefore is the ultimate Kentucky sports team nickname in my opinion.

14. SOUTHEASTERN OKLAHOMA SAVAGE STORM

Location: Durant, OK

Conference Affiliation: Lone Star Conference

Comment: How could you not want to play for a team with a nickname like this? “Savage Storm” sounds great for a sports team, a Gothic Romance novel (“She was swept away by the savage storm of his love!”) or a movie title, like maybe “Twister 2: Savage Storm”.

13. CAL STATE MONTEREY BAY OTTERS

Location: Seaside, CA

Conference Affiliation: California Collegiate Athletic Asociation

Comment: Despite this school contempfully rejecting my proposed marketing slogan “You otter go to Cal State-Monterey Bay” I think this is a pretty cool nickname and logo. You may have been expecting an Otter from Animal House joke here, but I couldn’t think of one.

Comment: Insert your own Ichabod Crane joke here. And since the women’s teams are called the Lady Blues go ahead and insert your own Billie Holiday (or even Diana Ross) joke here, too. Ichabod here is on his way to a business meeting with the guy from the Monopoly game.

11. ARKANSAS-MONTICELLO BOLL WEEVILS

Location: Monticello, AR

Conference Affiliation: Gulf South Conference

Comment: The folks at UAM call their football venue Cotton “Boll” Stadium, which is a joke so corny I might have made it myself! UAM teams are often as destrucive to opposing teams as their namesakes were to southern crops. Their mascot’s participation in that ESPN commercial made their teams better-known than many of the teams on this list. Their women’s teams are called the Cotton Blossoms and that’s pretty cool, too!

10. PALM BEACH ATLANTIC SAILFISH

Location: West Palm Beach, FL

Conference Affiliation: Independent

Comment: PBA can stand for Professional Bowlers Association or Peanut Butter Alliance if you’re into obscure rockabilly bands, but for the college sports world it can only stand for Palm Beach Atlantic. The nickname Sailfish is unique and memorable plus the mascot looks great on T-shirts and other merchandise.

9. ILLINOIS-SPRINGFIELD PRAIRIESTARS

Location: Springfield, IL

Conference Affiliation: Great Lakes Valley Conference

Comment: The NAIA has the Prairie Wolves, D3 has the Prairie Fire and D2 has the Prairiestars…The College Of Santa Fe sports teams were called the Prairie Dogs but that institution discontinued athletics. We may have exhausted “prairie” related nicknames. All that’s left might be “The Little Houses On The Prairie” or maybe “The Prairie Moons”, but picturing a Prairie Moon logo is kind of unappetizing.

8. CSU-PUEBLO THUNDERWOLVES

Location: Pueblo, CO

Conference Affiliation: Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference

Comment: Okay, let’s all get it out of our systems…”THUNDERWOLVES ARE GOOOO!” But Gerry and Sylvia Anderson references aside, how cool is the name Thunderwolves? It’s one of those names that sounds like it could be a new superhero if it was singular. Or maybe like our Thunderbirds reference above other Anderson productions could be used for sports teams! We’d have The Supercars, The Terrahawks, The Stingrays, The UFO’s and…The Space: 1999’s? Okay, forget it.

7. BYU-HAWAII SEASIDERS

Location: Laie, HI

Conference Affiliation: Pacific West Conference

Comment: If you’re like me you think of the closing credits to the original Hawaii 5-0 television series when you look at the Seasiders logo. But then, if you’re like me it also reminds you of all those cool Polynesian myths about migration from their lost home island long ago. Most importantly, if you’re like me, your attendants won’t let you handle sharp objects.

6. UC-SAN DIEGO TRITONS

Location: San Diego, CA

Conference Affiliation: California Collegiate Athletic Association

Comment: This team combines 2 of my passions: mythology and college sports. And their mascot looks like he’s participating in the little-known trident-hurling competition in the Olympics.

5. SOUTHERN ARKANSAS MULERIDERS

Location: Magnolia, AR

Conference Affiliation: Gulf South Conference

Comment: No, not the Donkeyjockeys, the Muleriders! This nickname has that “oddball cool” sound that I love about a lot of college sports teams. And before you laugh at the name let me point out that well-known Division 1A football coach Tommy Tuberville played his college ball for the Muleriders!

4. LINCOLN MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY RAILSPLITTERS

Location: Harrogate, TN

Conference Affiliation: South Atlantic Conference

Comment: Railsplitters is definitely a cooler, catchier nickname than “The Great Emancipators” or “The Five Dollar Bills” would be. This team used to have an incredibly cool logo of a cartoonish Abe Lincoln running along wielding an axe to split rails with. Picture the AZ State Sun Devils logo but with an axe instead of a pitchfork and a beloved American icon instead of a solar demon. Anyway, that logo is nowhere to be found on-line these days, so outside of a horror film about an axe-murderer dressed as Abe Lincoln we may never see that image again.

3. CHAMINADE SILVERSWORDS

Location: Honolulu, HI

Conference Affiliation: Pacific West Conference

Comment: Hawaii college sports teams all seem to have incredibly cool nicknames, and Silverswords may be the coolest of the bunch! There’s no truth to the story that they rejected names like Leadlances and Magnesiummaces before deciding on Silverswords, because the Silversword is really a plant with rigid swordlike leaves. Chaminade hosts the Maui Invitational every Thanksgiving week just to taunt colder parts of the country with how great their weather is.

2. TEXAS A&M-INTERNATIONAL DUST DEVILS

Location: Laredo, TX

Conference Affiliation: Heartland Conference

Comment: I defy you to take one look at that mascot and tell me you wouldn’t want to play for this school’s teams! An animated dust storm with devil horns wearing a cowboy hat and twirling a lariat sounds like something you’d dream about after eating bad shrimp nachos but it’s terrific as a sports team logo!

1. ACADEMY OF ART URBAN KNIGHTS

Location: San Francisco, CA

Conference Affiliation: Pacific West Conference

Comment: You’d expect an academy of art to have an incredibly eye-catching logo like this but this institution takes things to the Nth degree by also having an unbelievably cool nickname for its sports teams.

Bonus: I was torn between which Urban Knights logo to use so since they’re the number one team I’ll go ahead and use both.